All the World's a Stage

When the murmuring of the audience and soft rustling of the programs fade as the house lights dim. When a room, filled with strangers, friends and family, young and old, cease to be visible.

Backstage, cast and crew hold their breath in a united hush. Each performer is consumed with excitement, fear and anticipation, nerves reveal themselves. Some shift their weight from one leg to the other, a few heads are bowed in silent supplication, and others breathe deeply as if trying to consume every molecule of air in the room. Every shuffle of feet, muffled cough and whisper resonates throughout the room.

It’s that moment. When the curtain rises and the show begins.

Shakespeare, the greatest dramatist of all-time, wrote “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” Shakespeare’s plays, since their original performances, have not ceased to be recognized as brilliant, masterful, and moving. The reason they are timeless? He was not just spitting out beautiful thoughtless words but understood they were a means of communicating the nature of man. Through a play, the cast and crew create a world of fiction in hopes of communicating with and entertaining an audience. Theatre hits the sympathetic nerve allowing those present to laugh, cry, want revenge for a character, resolution for lovers, justice for the wicked, or forgiveness for the lawless. The Theatre Arts Department at The Master’s University performs these tasks at a level most theatres and companies cannot.

Coming off the heels of the seven-night, sold-out production of Fiddler on the Roof, Director Tricia Hulet is excited to present this fall’s production of You Can’t Take it with You. Hulet expressed, “I’ve wanted to do this show for a long time – it is fun and lively while also being thought provoking and redemptive. I think that audiences will relate to the characters and situations – and it promises to be an evening of a lot of laughter.”

Set in 1940’s New York City, the Sycamore family, filled with aspiring artists, ballerinas, writers, inventors, amateur firework makers and more, seem crazy! Especially compared to the upper echelon, reliable, even-tempered and respectable Kirby family. When Toby Kirby falls in love with Alice Sycamore, one wonders if perhaps the Sycamore’s have life figured out more than we think.

In the midst of this fun and entertaining show, come experience what makes Master’s U Theatre Arts so unique. Behind the costumes, sets, lines, characters, lights and music there is one consistent heartbeat. You can have all the money and fame in the world, but you can’t take it with you.